The Mind Tools Content Team

Encouraging Attention to Detail

How to Maintain High Standards

Do you have a team member who consistently makes small, but important, mistakes that compromise the quality of his work?

Apart from these mistakes, he's hardworking and creative, but it's apparent that he doesn't always take the time to check his work. As a result, some of his projects contain critical mistakes.

It takes time to double-check his work, and this has now begun to eat into the time you should be dedicating to other tasks. You're also beginning to worry that his lack of consistency might drag down the quality of work produced by your team, and might even damage your reputation.

You don't know what keeps going wrong or what to do next, and you're left wondering whether he will ever improve. The good news is that there are several steps you can take to encourage him – and the rest of your team – to pay attention to detail, which we will explore in this article.

The Importance of Quality Control Systems

Human beings, by nature, make mistakes. No one's perfect, after all! That's why hospitals, airlines and other major organizations require their employees to follow detailed procedures. These exist because no single individual can be expected to do everything perfectly, all of the time.